Door mirrors fitted to the door of an automobile and fender mirrors fitted to the front fender are well-known as a side-mirror apparatus. For example, in Japanese Laid-open patent publication No. Hei. 5-301541, a door mirror is disclosed where an outer casing of a door mirror fitted to an automobile door is fitted with an electronic camera on an outside surface of the outer casing of the door mirror, and an image is displayed by a display provided in the vicinity of the driver's seat. With these door mirrors, automobile safety is improved because it is possible to display images obtained by the electronic camera using a display apparatus to the front of the driver's seat, it is possible to output an alarm signal using an alarm when the distance to obstacles such as oncoming automobiles etc. becomes close, and it is possible for the driver to easily recognize conditions to the front of neighboring lanes displayed at a console etc. provided in the vicinity of the driver's seat.
The door mirror disclosed in Japanese patent laid-open publication no. Hei. 5-301541 has the drawback that, although it is possible to obtain a field of view to the front with the door mirror in a drawn-out position, it is not possible to obtain a field of view to the side and rear.
On the other hand, it is necessary to store the door mirror when passing through narrow lanes or passing obstacles such as telegraph poles and stationary automobiles. On the other hand, when the door mirror is stored, a field of view to the rear can no longer be obtained using the door mirror, and it is necessary to travel without being able to confirm to the rear using the door mirror. Moreover, when the door mirror is stored and it is intended to open the door and go to outside of the automobile, it is not possible to identify automobiles and people to the rear using the door mirror because the door mirror is already housed, which may be detrimental to the degree of safety.
As the present invention sets out to resolve the aforementioned problems, it is an advantage of the present invention to provide a side-mirror apparatus for automobile capable of obtaining a field of view to the rear even when the side mirror constituted by a door mirror is stored, to enable reliable identification to the rear of the automobile when the side mirror is stored and it is wished to go to outside of the automobile, and to enable observation of the inside and outside of the automobile utilizing a side mirror.